WHO AM I? 3

The riding solo and with my sister gave me the urge to explore further afield...

And so I did, using my home as the starting and ending point of each journey.

I also continued to ride my bike to work as well. (Late comers can read part 1, here.)

In early 1995 I got it into my head to bring a camera along & take pictures of what I encountered along the way on these jaunts.

So, in March, I headed up San Dimas Canyon Road alongside the creek, and into the mountains to the Dam. Round trip about 20 miles or so.

The pictures show the river, the Dam, the mountains and, thanks to the kindness of strangers, my bike ( a blue Mtn. bike since my last one was stolen ) & I several times.

One day, in the early spring of 1996, I walked into a bike shop looking for a headlight & came out with a book as well.

The book was entitled BICYCLE RIDES: LOS ANGELES COUNTY by Don & Sharon Brundige, a couple based out of San Pedro, Ca.. it was the 1991, revised edition ( there is also a 2000 edition, now! ).

What caught my attention was the cover picture of 3 cyclists pedaling on a path in Long Beach, with the Queen Mary in the backround, and the mention that there were 62 routes along beaches, parks, canyons, harbors, and other places inside the book.

For days I poured over this book, and 2 other books I found, soon after, on the shelves at the bookstore where I worked:

TOURING THE LA AREA BY BICYCLE by Peter Powers (1992)

THE BEST BIKE RIDES IN CALIFORNIA by Kimberly Grob (1995)

I was in heaven! I had this burning desire to hit the road on some of my days off.

But there was one problem: How in the hell was I to get to & from these bike rides?

Fortunately for me 3 of the areas Mass Transits had added, and were about to add bike racks to the front of their busses.

That spring an idea hit me: If I can get there by BUS, & get home by BUS, riding far afield would be a piece of cake!

And, so, with these books, 2 Thomas Bros. map books covering 4 counties, and all the bus schedules I could get my grubby little fingers on, an ongoing project was born.....

After all these years that project FINALLY has a name: Call it PROJECT CYCLING DUDE. :-)

1 1/2 small spiral notebooks, and plenty of pens have led to my having more than 80 bike routes written down, ready to be explored.

One thing I discovered in developing the routes was that some places changed over time, & adaptations to the route needed to be made.

Another was that sometimes the bus stops were not close to the start or finish of the route, and yet another was that, upon looking at the routes in the books, and in the Thomas Guides, I realized how short some were.

I decided to make my OWN routes, of longer mileage, using the Thomas Guides, & bus schedules to expand upon the routes of the original authors.

A by-product of this was that I also created routes of my own design as well.

Keep in mind, now, that I'd never travelled along 95% of these routes, even by car, and had no real clue of the terrain I might encounter or how populated the neighborhoods.

That summer, with a NEW bike, I began to journey out into the wilds of the Southern California inner city and suburban landscapes ( Click on Thumbnail. ), and even inched up into a few foothills as well.....

Next is Part 4.